K, here's how I sum this movie up:
First, somebody had a really messed up childhood. Then, they grew up and made movies. Four seconds into this one, New York City is blown up by nuclear bombs. But that's not the worst thing that happens... After a handful of high rise apartment tenants are unlucky (yes, unlucky)enough to make it into the basement fallout shelter (provisioned by their super), we get one man's solution to the mystery of just what lurks in the dirty, icky, dark parts of the human psyche.
Nobody smiles or laughs or enjoys themselves in this film, and you won't either. As they sit huddled in the dirty, infested basement, they realize that their supply of tolerance and distraction is as short as their food supply. About a third of the way through the film, hopelessness and despondency give way to brutality, and that quickly degrades to outright depravity. If you've ever wondered to what lengths humanity is willing to stoop when confronted with total despair, it seems that Xavier Gens has a few thoughts.
This film is relentlessly (though strangely, not gratuitously) graphic. You have torture, rape, and death both concurrently and consecutively. Bodies of the dead are dismembered with axes and sent through the septic system. People are beaten on screen with unparalleled brutality. Blood and dust and grime is everywhere. But again, that's not the worst of it... The psychological torture that is meticulously detailed as the characters slowly lose their sense of morality, humanity, and eventually sanity makes films like "Hostile" and "Touristas" look tame. The quiet tension that pervades the basement is the most terrifying part.
So be warned. This is not a post apocalypse narrative in the spirit of "The Walking Dead" or "I am Legend". This is film a that will shock even the most hardened and desensitized horror fans out there. It will get inside your head, and affect the way you see people at least for a few days afterwords. But if that's what you're into, you'll find few films more memorable (somehow the word "enjoyable" just doesn't apply here). If you're not sure, have any degree of squeamishness, or thought that "Bridesmaids" was a good film, don't bother.
It's hard to say whether "The Divide" is "Good" or "Bad". (To jump off- point a bit and onto my soapbox, sites like IMDb tend to annoy me because I think that many of those who post don't understand the concept of aesthetic review. Just because you don't like it, or you weren't looking for a film that's going to disturb your sensibilities doesn't make it a bad film. A bad film is a film that fails to do what it intended to do -- a comedy that's not funny, a boring action film, a laughable horror film.) So, with that in mind, it's certainly not "garbage". In fact, it's obviously extremely effective. It's well acted, though I pity the actors having to go through the process of making it. It's well shot, edited, and scored, so technically, it's a well-crafted film. It has a statement, and I don't think there's any way to be unclear about it, but I'm not entirely sure that it's particularly profound or clever, and it's certainly not subtle. The question I have is whether this statement really needs to be made at all. I wouldn't be surprised to find that he won some bet with a friend over whether he could make the most emotionally abusive film of all time.
The one thing I will say is that in this day and age, which (for some sociological reason I'm sure grad students at schools all over the country are currently writing their theses on)the younger generation tends fixate on overly romanticized apocalypse narratives, it's oddly refreshing to see one that shows it as something other than an end to boring responsibility and an opportunity to blow stuff up with automatic weapons. Maybe it won't be all choppers, ad-hoc armored cars and AR-15s after all, but if it happens during my lifetime, I hope it doesn't suck this bad...
First, somebody had a really messed up childhood. Then, they grew up and made movies. Four seconds into this one, New York City is blown up by nuclear bombs. But that's not the worst thing that happens... After a handful of high rise apartment tenants are unlucky (yes, unlucky)enough to make it into the basement fallout shelter (provisioned by their super), we get one man's solution to the mystery of just what lurks in the dirty, icky, dark parts of the human psyche.
Nobody smiles or laughs or enjoys themselves in this film, and you won't either. As they sit huddled in the dirty, infested basement, they realize that their supply of tolerance and distraction is as short as their food supply. About a third of the way through the film, hopelessness and despondency give way to brutality, and that quickly degrades to outright depravity. If you've ever wondered to what lengths humanity is willing to stoop when confronted with total despair, it seems that Xavier Gens has a few thoughts.
This film is relentlessly (though strangely, not gratuitously) graphic. You have torture, rape, and death both concurrently and consecutively. Bodies of the dead are dismembered with axes and sent through the septic system. People are beaten on screen with unparalleled brutality. Blood and dust and grime is everywhere. But again, that's not the worst of it... The psychological torture that is meticulously detailed as the characters slowly lose their sense of morality, humanity, and eventually sanity makes films like "Hostile" and "Touristas" look tame. The quiet tension that pervades the basement is the most terrifying part.
So be warned. This is not a post apocalypse narrative in the spirit of "The Walking Dead" or "I am Legend". This is film a that will shock even the most hardened and desensitized horror fans out there. It will get inside your head, and affect the way you see people at least for a few days afterwords. But if that's what you're into, you'll find few films more memorable (somehow the word "enjoyable" just doesn't apply here). If you're not sure, have any degree of squeamishness, or thought that "Bridesmaids" was a good film, don't bother.
It's hard to say whether "The Divide" is "Good" or "Bad". (To jump off- point a bit and onto my soapbox, sites like IMDb tend to annoy me because I think that many of those who post don't understand the concept of aesthetic review. Just because you don't like it, or you weren't looking for a film that's going to disturb your sensibilities doesn't make it a bad film. A bad film is a film that fails to do what it intended to do -- a comedy that's not funny, a boring action film, a laughable horror film.) So, with that in mind, it's certainly not "garbage". In fact, it's obviously extremely effective. It's well acted, though I pity the actors having to go through the process of making it. It's well shot, edited, and scored, so technically, it's a well-crafted film. It has a statement, and I don't think there's any way to be unclear about it, but I'm not entirely sure that it's particularly profound or clever, and it's certainly not subtle. The question I have is whether this statement really needs to be made at all. I wouldn't be surprised to find that he won some bet with a friend over whether he could make the most emotionally abusive film of all time.
The one thing I will say is that in this day and age, which (for some sociological reason I'm sure grad students at schools all over the country are currently writing their theses on)the younger generation tends fixate on overly romanticized apocalypse narratives, it's oddly refreshing to see one that shows it as something other than an end to boring responsibility and an opportunity to blow stuff up with automatic weapons. Maybe it won't be all choppers, ad-hoc armored cars and AR-15s after all, but if it happens during my lifetime, I hope it doesn't suck this bad...